Wyoming Explosion: Entire Town Evacuated After Unexplained Blast At Gas Plant
A Wyoming explosion caused by a malfunction at a natural gas plant has caused an entire town to be evacuated, with officials still unsure what caused the blast.
The explosion took place Wednesday at roughly 2pm MDT at the Williams Gas Plant, located about five miles outside the town of Opal. The plant had to be shut down, though company spokeswoman Michelle Swaner said there were no injuries caused by the blast.
Officials at the plant are working to make arrangements for the roughly 100 people who live in the rural outpost and were displaced.
The cause of the Wyoming explosion is still under investigation, but officials believe they have narrowed it down to just a few possibilities.
“It’s a big gas processing plant, it’s huge, and we believe the fire and explosion occurred in our turboexpander… and we have five of them at that facility so the explosion and fire occurred in that area,” Swaner said.
Wyoming has seen it share of disasters in the past month, though none have resulted in deaths. For the past several weeks, a landslide in Jackson Hole has been slowly devouring a town one business and home at a time.
This is not the first explosion at a gas plant. In March, a blast at Williams Natural-Gas Plan in Washington injured one worker, though Swaner clarified that Wednesday’s explosion was “totally different.”
Another Wyoming explosion in November left five workers injured, including one critically. The blast took place at Jonah gas field, where five of six condensate gas tanks exploded without warning.
